Installing new scenes

Once the simulator is already installed and working you may want to try different scenes. Some of them are automatically installed the first time the simulator starts, but a few more can be installed through the scene installer script. In this section we will describe how to use the scene installer to download and install extra scenes, to learn more about the default scenes and how to create new ones visit Configuring and creating scenes.

Scene installer

The scene installer, located in the data/scenes folder inside uwsim, uses simple ".uws" metascene files which points where are the different models and configuration files of the scene in the IRSLab server and where should they be in your computer. This script simply downloads and moves the files to the correct folders so users can safely run the scene. Furthermore downloading .uws to feed the script is no longer necessary as they can be directly downloaded from the server if you know the name of the scene using "-s" option. So using the following command will automatically download and install the pipes scene:

./installScene -s pipes_scene.uws

The process will automatically delete any intermediate file, so you don't have to worry about cleaning downloaded files. As some scenes share models "file already exists" errors may appear, if you want to update the downloaded 3D models you can use "-f" option which will overwrite every file with the same name (use it at your own risk). Once the scene is installed you need to execute:

catkin_make install

This will install the scene in your ros path and make it available when you run UWSim normally like this:

rosrun uwsim uwsim --configfile pipes_scene.xml

Finally you may use a ".uws" file downloaded through the website just feed the script with it like this:

./installScene file.uws

Here is a list of the available scenes that can also be found at the website [1].

dredging.uws: The Dredging scene shows a buried amphora and a girona500 ready to dredge the mud around in order to grasp it.

pipes_scenes.uws: Example scene with a girona500 in a terrain with a shipwreck and pipes, suitable for basic pipe following algorithms.

cuba.uws: Scene showing the IRSLab training facilities with a water tank, ARM5 in a floating platform and some objects to grasp.